Friday Free-For-All

Steve Breen Cartoon via Townhall

That’s right…now that OBL’s diary is in America’s  hands, shocking excerpts have been leaked to the media. Mostly to conservative blogs,  it turns out…

I Hate The Media: Exclusive: Shocking excerpts from Osama Bin Laden’s diaries

Dear Diary,
So sad today. Martyrdom can be very lonely thing. Hiding out in a massive complex with just the bare minimal number of satellite channels and only a few wives while all your friends are getting blown up by American bombs is some times too much to bear. Sorry. Got to go. Abduhl just found repeats of Everyone Loves the Raymond!

Dear Diary,
Each day I realize that Islam is the religion of peace. If I could only kill all the people who don’t share this opinion. Here’s hoping.

Dear Diary,
Al-Zawarhi is on Fox. He’s so dreamy. That thick beard and those little glasses. He looks so intellectual. I think I have a little man-crush going on! lol.

Big Peace: The Bin Laden Files: Excerpts From Osama’s Captured Diary

January 26, 2009:  Okay, two votes for “Stay grey” and two votes for “Try dye.”  Great – either way I piss two wives off.  And Mohammed commanded I take multiple wives why?

* * *

February 14, 2009:  Turns out I forgot Valentine’s Day, WHICH IS NOT EVEN OBSERVED BY FAITHFUL MUSLIMS!  Oh, but is that explanation going to satisfy the wives?  Of course not!  That would be logical!  I miss the cave and the comfort of hardy, rough, sweaty fighting men.

* * *

April 13, 2009:  Out pacing around the courtyard and heard this hum.  I thought it was a drone, so I totally ran inside but it turned out to be Amal using the blender to make smoothies.  The wives all started laughing and keep calling me “The Strong Horse.”  If I could leave here to get a stick to beat them with I would.

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Sharp Elbows at Big Journalism has an excellent report on The Left’s Penchant for Selectively Editing Videos.

Citizen media, with the internet and small video cameras, pose a threat to the left’s most sacred institutions. Something that began with James OKeefe bringing down ACORN and Lila Rose knocking on Planned Parenthood’s door has turned into a movement of everyday people questioning their elected officials with flip cams and using technology to change the world.  Naturally, the left, coupled with the media, is out to put a stop to this.

As a blogger-videographer-citizen journalist,  I have been accused of heavily editing my videos.  As if I’m James Cameron and I some how created a C.G.I. version of Phil Hare and MADE him say “I don’t worry about the Constitution.”

Read on for examples (w/video)of how the left habitually does what it accuses conservatives of doing.

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Sir Charles drops the Hammer again on Obama as only he knows how: Demagoguery 101:

Constructive and civil debate — like the one Obama initiated just four weeks ago on deficit reduction? The speech in which he accused the Republicans of abandoning families of kids with autism and Down syndrome? The debate in which Obama’s secretary of health and human services said that the Republican plan would make old folks “die sooner”?

In this same spirit of comity and mutual respect, Obama’s most recent invitation to civil discourse — on immigration — came just eleven minutes after he accused opponents of moving the goal posts on border enforcement. “Maybe they’ll need a moat,” he said sarcastically. “Maybe they want alligators in the moat.”

Nice touch. Looks like the Tucson truce — no demonization, no cross-hairs metaphors — is officially over. After all, the Republicans want to kill off the elderly, throw the disabled in the snow, and watch alligators lunch on illegal immigrants.

The El Paso speech is notable not for breaking any new ground on immigration, but for perfectly illustrating Obama’s political style: the professorial, almost therapeutic, invitation to civil discourse, wrapped around the basest of rhetorical devices — charges of malice compounded with accusations of bad faith. “They’ll never be satisfied,” said Obama about border control. “And I understand that. That’s politics.”

How understanding. The other side plays “politics,” Obama acts in the public interest. Their eyes are on poll numbers, political power, the next election; Obama’s rest fixedly on the little children.

Where have you been, Charles? Paul Krugman pronounced the “Tucson truce” officially over weeks ago with his NYTs piece: Civility is the Last Refuge of Scoundrels. 

How wonderful it must be to be able to make or break cultural mores at random, huh?

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Speaking of which – Jim Geraghty has a good piece at The Campaign Spot: Hey, Don’t Punch That – Wait, He’s With Your Opponent? Swing Away!

Journolisters have figured out how to defend NY-26 fake tea party candidate, Jack Davis.

Old and Busted: Unhinged pols taking angry swipes at citizen journalists.

The New Hotness: Unhinged pols taking angry swipes at opponents’ campaign staffers.

Up in New York’s 26th Congressional District, local media – and Dave Weigel – believe that it is a grand revelation to learn that the cameraman in this video, who appears to be punched or slapped by Jack Davis, is the chief of staff of Republican candidate Jane Corwin.

Weigel adds, “If this backfires on Corwin, I think she’s a victim of newfound media skepticism about video ambushes that are made to go viral. Local reporters in North Carolina felt just a little burned after 2010, when despite multiple denials it turned out that the “students” who turned Bob Etheridge into the Incredible Hulk were working for the GOP.”

Er, why does the affiliation of the cameraman matter? Is there some perception that punching people is wrong, but if it’s a staff member of the opposing campaign, then it’s understandable?

“Hey, how could you punch that guy? What? He’s with the opposing campaign? Oh, it’s okay then.”

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The BlogProf  on Obama’s ongoing war against the oil industry: Totalitarianism: 35 IRS Agents “Permanantly Live” at Exxon Mobil “Year Round”

From Carpe Diem: Tax Fact of the Day:35 IRS Agents at XOM Full-Time 

On a blogger conference call yesterday with API and ExxonMobil, Jaime Spellings,Vice President and General Tax Counsel for ExxonMobil said:

“And the IRS – we have a permanent team of 35 IRS agents who live here year-round. You know, we accommodate them, we deal with them every single day.”

Seems like that would pretty much guarantee that ExxonMobil pays “its fair share of taxes.”

Indeed. And how is such Big Brother micromanagement going to lower gas prices? Answer: it won’t, and that’s what Obama wants: Flashback 2008: Obama says he wants gas prices to go up.

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More from The Curmudgeon Emeritus at Eternity Road:  Markers

$4.00 per gallon is now about the least one can expect to pay for gasoline, unless you’re buying millions of gallons at a time. Heating oil is comparably expensive, and in many parts of the coutry no alternative exists. “Alternative energy” has been proved to be a label for an elaborate fraud. The East Anglia CRU data leak has proved the “global warming / climate change” thesis to be utter nonsense advanced to secure funding and political influence. “Biofuels” have contributed to the explosion of food prices while doing less than nothing to propel our vehicles.

The markers of a snowballing crisis are everywhere, yet matters continue to deteriorate.

At Pajamas Media this morning, Gary Wickert lays out the case that high gasoline prices are a deliberate consequence of Obama Administration policy:

The United States is actually the third-largest producer of crude oil in the world, but we still import nearly 40% of our crude oil demand, mainly from Canada, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, and Venezuela. But here is where life becomes quite simple. The more crude oil we produce domestically, the less taxes we heap on a gallon of gasoline, the fewer hurdles and blends we require of domestic manufacturers, the less we pay for gasoline. U.S. domestic oil production peaked way back in 1970, and by 2005, imports were twice that of domestically produced crude oil.Increasing domestic exploration, drilling, and production is the simple solution to what we are paying at the pump. Yet our president has repeatedly misled us by alleging that there is no “silver bullet” for lowering gas prices. What the Obama administration and his liberal machine have been doing is just the opposite — and it is beginning to look intentional.

“Beginning to look intentional” — ? Only beginning?

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Cold Fury: Repeal reality! Or: The new Berlin Wall:

If you build it, they will flee.

The NLRB’s action, which Boeing will challenge at a hearing next month, is a big deal. It’s the first time a federal agency has intervened to tell an American company where it can and cannot operate a plant within the U.S. It lays the foundation of a regulatory wall with one express purpose: to prevent the direct competition of right-to-work states with union-shop states. Why, as South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley recently asked on these pages, should Washington have any more right to these jobs than South Carolina?

A recent New York Times editorial justified the NLRB decision by arguing that unions are suffering from “the flight of companies to ‘Right-to-Work’ states where workers cannot be required to join a union.” That’s for sure, and quite an admission. We’ve been observing that migration pattern for years, but liberals have denied it’s actually happening—until now.

Now just think about that one for a minute: “…where workers CANNOT BE REQUIRED to join a union.” And the NYT, union goons, and the federal government are all foursquare against that sort of elementary freedom of choice. How very Soviet of them.

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Steve Foley, The Minority Report: Jon Huntsman Still Supports Cap-N-Trade?

This is the first time, and hopefully the last time that nonentity, John Huntsman is mentioned on my blog:

In an article from Time, titled – Jon Huntsman: The Would Be Republican Presidential Candidate Democrats Most Fear (remember the other day when we were taking about the narrative coming from the left?), former Ambassador to China under President Obama, Jon Huntsman, tried to distance himself from his support for regional Cap-n-Trade, and in so doing, joins a group of GOP 2012 candidates who were for Cap-N-Trade before they were against it!

At least he hasn’t done a PSA with Nancy Pelosi.

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John Nolte, Big Hollywood: The New Blacklist: Rachel Maddow Declares ‘Witchhunt’ Against Huckabee Animators

Rachel Maddow’s closing remarks in this segment are nothing short of obscene:

“We asked [Huckabee’s production company] today who had done the animation on these DVDs.  They would not tell us.  If you know who brought this amazing animated sauce to life, please get in touch with us.  We would like to know.”

Maddow might couch her unholy request in that chirpy, kindergarten teacher voice, but the venom is 100% pure.  The hypocrisy, however, is 150%.

Read the quote again closely. Maddow already knows the name of the production company, but right after decrying the Hollywood blacklist of the 1950s, she demands the production company — wait for it, wait for it — name names. And because they refuse to name names, Maddow then weaponizes her own audience to witchunt up those names on her behalf.

Why?

Read the whole thing.

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Michelle Malkin: What Happened on AA Flight 1561

Can be summed up in 3 words: Sudden Jihad syndrome.